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Nathan Slept Here! Coney Island’s Feltman’s Kitchen Set for Demolition

Posted in Coney Island Redevelopment, history, tagged Charles Feltman, Coney Island, demolition, Feltman's, historic kitchen, historic restaurant, hot dog, Nathan's on January 19, 2010| 7 Comments »

Feltman's Kitchen on Astroland - Scheduled for Demolition. Photo © Bruce Handy/Pablo 57 via flickr

The old Feltman’s kitchen building on the Astroland site is among the structures set to be demolished to make way for new amusements on the City-owned parcel. This humble building is the last remnant of the fabulous block-long restaurant and entertainment empire owned by Charles Feltman, the inventor of the hot dog.

According to Ric Burns’s movie about Coney Island, Nathan Handwerker worked in Feltman’s kitchen and slept on the floor for a year before he went on to found Nathan’s Famous! Since Feltman’s consisted of nine restaurants, a beer garden, a maple garden and much more, we can’t be sure where Handwerker bedded down. But we think the phrases “Nathan Slept Here!” and “The hot dog was invented here!” have tourism potential. Shouldn’t the City be renovating Feltman’s Kitchen as a little museum and hot dog stand instead of tearing it down?

Asbestos abatement has already started according to“Capt Nemo,” who posted photos of the work site on the Coney Island Message Board. A notice lists the owner of the historic property referred to now as “Parcel A” as “NYCEDC, New York City Economic Development Corporation- Coney Island Amusements.” The Amphitheater building (site of Astroland’s Diving Bell), Westside building (Feltman’s kitchen), an electrical shed and a trailer are on the list of locations to be abated.

Tile floor in historic Feltman's kitchen on Astroland property, Jan 31, 2009. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

The photos reminded us that last January we took pix of the tiles in the old Feltman’s kitchen for our friend “Coney Islander.” It was the last day of Astroland before the property was to be turned over to Thor Equities. “Coney Islander” wanted a tile as a keepsake, but we couldn’t find a loose one. Our friend said the tiles were not only Coney Island history, but American history too: “The first hot dog might have fallen on that floor!” Of course “the first hot dog” was invented by Charles Feltman in 1867 when he was pushing a pie wagon. But the building is all that remains of Feltman’s in Coney Island. The floor definitely has character. It has a story to tell. We just had to figure out what it was. Sometimes if the full story isn’t known, an apocryphal one fills the vacuum. The floor looks so old it’s easy to imagine the original hot dog falling on it.

One year later, we have the full story. It’s titled “Nathan Slept Here!” In 1915, Nathan Handwerker, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, went to work for Feltman, who was by then the proprietor of a palatial sit-down restaurant at Surf Ave and 10th Street. Handwerker’s job was slicing hot dog rolls and delivering the franks to the guys who toiled at the grilling stations. The young man lived on free hot dogs and slept on the kitchen floor to save his $11 per week salary. At the end of the year, he’d saved $300 and opened a competing stand–5 cents a hot dog instead of 10 cents. That was the beginning of Nathan’s Famous and the downfall of Feltman’s, which went out of business in 1952. The property was sold to the Albert family and became the space-age Astroland Park in the early 1960s. For nearly 50 years, Feltman’s kitchen has survived as a workshop for Astroland’s rides.

Mural on west wall of Feltman's Kitchen Seen from Jones Walk. Photo © Tricia Vita/me-myself-i via flickr

Steeplechase Pool, Zip Coaster Sites to Be De-Mapped for Housing

Posted in Coney Island Redevelopment, history, tagged Coney Island, de-mapping parkland, parkland alienation, paved paradise, Steeplechase Park, Steeplechase Pool, Zip Roller Coaster on January 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »

It’s a shame that part of the City’s Steeplechase property is set to become a residential enclave with million dollar views instead of additional acreage for Coney Island’s new amusement park. Over on the Coney Island Message Board, vintage photos and postcards of the salt water swimming pool at Coney Island’s Steeplechase Park (1897-1964) have inspired a lively discussion about the pool’s exact location. After several maps were posted, the consensus is the Steeplechase Park Pool is buried beneath Keyspan parking lot, which is City owned parkland.

Steeplechase swimming pool Coney Island NY. Vintage Postcard via amhpics flickr

Steeplechase swimming pool and Zip Coaster in Coney Island NY circa 1940s. Vintage Postcard via amhpics flickr

The fact that the Giuliani administration paved over Paradise–part of the Steeplechase Park site–to allow parkland to be turned into the Keyspan parking lot is bad enough (nod to Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”). Now the Bloomberg administration is asking the state legislature to “alienate” and de-map the parkland/parking lot so it can be sold to a private developer (most likely Taconic Investment Partners) to build 1,900 units of housing.

The Coney Island Message Board‘s JimEmack writes: “I believe the old Steeplechase swimming pool was just filled in with parts of the old bathhouses that were on two sides of the pool. It was just plowed over with debris from tearing down the park. Maybe a future generation will unearth it once again.”

Somehow we don’t think a Steeplechase Pool in the basement will be one of the amenities of the luxury housing slated to be built on the site. Perhaps the apartments will be named Steeplechase something-or-other in memory of George C Tilyou’s Funny Place, where 10,000 People Laughed at One Time?

Coney Island Aerial: Detail of Conceptual Rendering. CIDC Press Kit

Coney Island Aerial: Detail of Conceptual Rendering Shows Residential Towers West and North of Keyspan Park. CIDC Press Kit

Steeplechase died in 1966, when Fred Trump bought the property and threw a party to celebrate the destruction of the Pavilion of Fun. “The Trump Organization office views the acreage as a potential site for a modern Miami Beach type high rise apartment,” according to the New York Times clipping “6 Bikinied Beauties Attend Demolishing of Coney Landmark” in Charles Denson’s Coney Island Lost and Found. Trump’s effort to get the zoning changed to residential failed to get approval. Now the City itself is planning to do what the City wouldn’t let Fred Trump do more than 40 years ago.

The Brooklyn Cyclones ballpark was built on the site of Steeplechase’s Pavilion of Fun, but the ballpark is a recreational use and helped revitalize Coney Island when it opened in 2001. A mass of apartment towers on the edge of a dwarfed amusement area is another story, though the City insists 5,000 units of housing is a necessary component of their plan to revitalize Coney Island.

Detail of CIDC Map of of Coney Island Redevelopment Plan. Salmon and cream color denote residential and residential towers

Color Key for CIDC Map of Redeveloped Coney Island

In Coney Island, Mayor Bloomberg gives with one hand (6.9 acres purchased from Thor Equities for the City’s new amusement park, which we applaud) and takes away with the other (City parkland aka Keyspan parking lot to be demapped by the state legislature and sold to a private developer to build housing including high rises). Before the rezoning in July 2009, the City estimated that over 1,900 of the proposed 5,000 housing units would go unbuilt if the parkland were not alienated.

We wish those 1,900 units would go unbuilt and the parking lot remain parkland. As long as the land remains undeveloped and has the word “park” in it, there’s hope that it could be used for amusement or recreation in the future. Now that the City has gone ahead and acquired the Boardwalk property from Thor Equities to replace the de-mapped parkland/parking lot, we anticipate the legislators will give the plan the go ahead.

Conceptual Rendering of Coney Island at Night. CIDC Press Kit

Last week, when BK Southie reproduced the CIDC’s full size rendering on his blog, a commenter wanted to know: “Why does the surrounding area look more like midtown Manhattan than Coney Island?” People are surprised to find out the rezoning puts 26 high rise residential towers and 5,000 new units of housing in Coney Island. The parkland alienation vote is looming, yet this issue hasn’t gotten any attention lately in the press. We think it’s because the focus has been on the City’s efforts to acquire Thor Equities property in the amusement area and the four high rise hotels proposed for the south side of Surf Avenue. As Joni Mitchell sings, “Don’t it always seem to go… That you don’t know what you’ve got… Till it’s gone.”

Greetings from the Swimming Pool at Steeplechase Park! Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection.

Looking Back & Forward: Astroland Shrine on New Year’s Day 2009

Posted in history, tagged Astroland Shrine, Coney Island, Freezin for a Reason, New Year's Day, Polar Bear Club on December 30, 2009| 2 Comments »

Last year at this time, we were mourning the loss of Coney Island’s Astroland Park and tending a little shrine on Astroland’s Boardwalk Gates. Here’s a look back at the Astroland Gate on New Year’s Day 2009 by Livvvvvvv via YouTube. The children’s voices are poignant…

The memorial began the day after Christmas with our handmade collage, a friend’s bouquet of flowers and a banner of a tightrope dancer. Two days later, we learned the collage had been stolen, its plastic fasteners cut. When the black ink on the banner bled in the rain, photographer Bruce Handy said the ballerina was weeping. But the shrine grew to include photos, banner painter Marie Roberts’ paintbrush (symbolizing a fresh start), beads, a paper mache mask, and a cane. The flowers remained in place through opening day of Coney Island’s 2009 season.

On January 1, 2010, we’ll be in Coney Island as usual to celebrate the New Year with the multitude of friends and strangers who come for the Polar Bear Club Swim. No, we’re not swimming, but we’re sponsoring a Bear who is Freezin’ for a Reason and you can, too. It’s for a good cause–they’re raising funds for Camp Sunshine.

We’d like to decorate the gate with a few photos, too. In addition to memorializing the good times at Astroland, we want to let visitors know that Coney Island is not closed! On Palm Sunday (March 28, 2010), the Cyclone Roller Coaster, Deno’s Wonder Wheel Park, McCullough’s Kiddie Park, Eldorado Bumper Cars, Coney Island Sideshow and other Coney Island businesses open for the season. By Memorial Day Weekend, the former Astroland site will be home to a yet-to-be-designated amusement operator‘s rides and attractions. We anticipate nothing less than a spectacular summer season. Happy New Year Everyone! Happy New Year to Coney Island!